Voices in Humanism

Some days

Parents transform fear
into anger
ask me how long
I’ve been “doing this”
passerby call me “nurse”
“resident”
“hey you”
patients who want to go home
don’t
patients who demand to stay
do
I steal crackers
and deep breaths in the stairwell.

Other days
I share invisible tea
from a plastic tea cup
receive blown kisses from a boy
in a red wagon
IV pole trailing softly behind
wave goodbye to a girl
whose smile doesn’t know
what “sick” means

 

Jessica Rutsky, MD
Pediatric Gastroenterology Fellow
Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center
OSU College of Medicine Class of 2017
Vanderbiilt University Class of 2012